Speaker: ClaudiusSpeaking to: himselfmeaning: His words mean nothing to him, he is just saying them.

“Oh I am slain.”

Speaker: PoloniusSpeaking to: himselfmeaning: “Oh, I am dead.”

“To be or not to be? This is the question – Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take the arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them? To die, to sleep – no more.”

Speaker: HamletSpeaking to: himselfmeaning: Hamlet is basically comparing if he should live or die. Should he keep all the things he has and is going through, or should he die and leave it all behind?

“Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be breeder of sinners?”

Speaker: HamletSpeaking to: Opheliameaning: Go to a nunnery, so Ophelia can’t have kids and bring more sinners into the world.

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”

Speaker: PoloniusSpeaking to: Laertasmeaning: This is when Polonius is giving Laertas his fatherly advice saying he should not be a hypocrite.

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

Speaker: MarcellusSpeaking to: Horatiomeaning: The ghost is a visible symptom of the rottenness of Denmark created by Claudius’s crime.

“I have of late,—but wherefore I know not,—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

Speaker: HamletSpeaking to: Rosencrantz & Guildensternmeaning: explains the melancholy that has afflicted him since his father’s deathHe then describes human beings from several perspectives, each one adding to his glorification of them. But, to Hamlet, humankind is merely dust. Finally, it is also telling that Hamlet makes humankind more impressive in “apprehension” (meaning understanding) than in “action.”

“O that this too too solid flesh would melt,Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!Or that the Everlasting had not fix’dHis canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitableSeem to me all the uses of this world!Fie on’t! O fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,That grows to seed; things rank and gross in naturePossess it merely. That it should come to this!But two months dead!—nay, not so much, not two:So excellent a king; that was, to this,Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,That he might not beteem the winds of heavenVisit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!Must I remember? Why, she would hang on himAs if increase of appetite had grownBy what it fed on: and yet, within a month,— Let me not think on’t,—Frailty, thy name is woman!— A little month; or ere those shoes were oldWith which she followed my poor father’s bodyLike Niobe, all tears;—why she, even she,— O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason,Would have mourn’d longer,—married with mine uncle,My father’s brother; but no more like my fatherThan I to Hercules: within a month;Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tearsHad left the flushing in her galled eyes,She married:— O, most wicked speed, to postWith such dexterity to incestuous sheets!It is not, nor it cannot come to good;But break my heart,—for I must hold my tongue.”